ARLINGTON HEIGHTS – The great ones find a way to continually reinvent themselves, when the old tricks aren’t getting the job done. In the opinion of many of the railbirds at Arlington Park, 8-year-old gelding Rahystrada is a great one – at least by local standards. In today’s Grade I Arlington Million, Rahystrada gets a chance to prove his greatness against a decorated, international field.

The strategy issued by Rahystrada’s trainer Byron “Scooter” Hughes, and employed by several of his recent jockeys hadn’t been working. He’d been sitting in mid-pack, trying to close ground in the stretch. But he’d come up short in each of his past three races dating to October. Rahystrada’s most recent start, the June 16 Colonial Derby, frustrated Hughes immensely. He decided that Rahystrada would throw down the gauntlet in the July 14 Arlington Handicap by going right to the lead and playing “catch me if you can.”

They didn’t.